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Depression on the Rise Among U.S. Teens, Especially Girls

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Depression is on the rise among American teens and young adults, with adolescent girls showing the greatest vulnerability, a new national survey reveals.

Back in 2005, the risk of major depressive disorder for teenage boys was pegged at 4.5 percent, and 13 percent for teenage girls. By 2014, however, boys' risk of depression rose to 6 percent, but for girls it soared to more than 17 percent, the survey found.

"These are episodes during which the adolescent experiences five or more depressive symptoms for a period of two weeks or longer," explained study author Dr. Ramin Mojtabai. He is a professor in the department of mental health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

A closer look shows that teen depression risk only started to edge upwards starting in 2012, with risk weighing more heavily on teen girls throughout the survey period. Mojtabai said the findings "are consistent with recent data on trends in suicide in the U.S."

Mojtabai and colleagues reported the results online in the journal Pediatrics.

The study team pointed out that, among American teens and young adults, roughly one in 11 experience a major depressive disorder every year.

The study examined data collected between 2005 and 2014 by the U.S. National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. More than 172,000 American teens (aged 12 to 17) and nearly 179,000 young adults (18 to 25) were included in the analysis.

The result: overall risk over the course of a single year rose from under 9 percent in 2005 to about 11 percent by 2014 among all teens, and from just under 9 percent to a bit shy of 10 percent among young adults.

But across the entire decade, teenage girls were found to be strikingly more vulnerable to depression than teenage boys, the researchers said.

Mojtabai said the jury remains out as to why, though he and other researchers have theorized that girls may simply be exposed to more depression risk triggers than boys.

For example, "there is some research indicating that cyberbullying may have increased more dramatically among girls than boys," Mojtabai said. In addition, "as compared with adolescent boys, adolescent girls also now use mobile phones with texting applications more frequently and intensively. And problematic mobile phone use among young people has been linked to depressed mood. These associations, however, remain speculative," he noted.